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Food Stamps Restriction

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  • Strawblackcat
    Strawblackcat Posts: 944 Member
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    I'm in favor of what someone else suggested a few pages ago by making SNAP work more like WIC. Nutritious items like fruits, vegetables, meats, while grains, and dairy items would be approved for purchase by the program, and items that didn't have approval (like cookies, crackers, soda, etc.) Would be paid for by the buyer's money. SNAP is meant to help people afford to buy enough food to eat. It's not meant to cover 100% of a person's food budget. If someone in SNAP wants to buy soda, that's fine, but they should use their own money to pay for that and use their SNAP benefits to buy actual food.

    If my food budget is $20 and $10 of that is from SNAP, why does it matter I'm actually purchasing the soda with? If I use my SNAP to buy $2 worth of beans and then use my $2 that I didn't spend on beans to buy soda or vice versa, it's the exact same result.

    It's one thing to need help feeding your family and another to ask for help feeding your family and then use that help for luxuries.

    It's being used for "luxuries" (if soda can be considered such) anyway. Whether it is directly paying for them or people are using the money that is freed up to buy soda doesn't seem relevant to me.

    It's one thing to use your own money for luxuries, another to use other people's tax dollars.

    So you see a relevant difference between directly using the benefits to buy soda and using the money that has been freed up because SNAP covered pasta or beans or whatever to buy soda?

    It's true that soda is still being bought, if that's the point you're trying to make.

    The difference is that if someone is using SNAP dollars to buy soda, then the government is essentially using tax dollars to pay for a food that is a major contributor to obesity, which causes an increased for many chronic diseases, which would then necessitate medical care that would probably be paid for using Medicare/Medicaid, spending more tax money in the process.

    What you use your own money for is your deal.

    I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I don't believe that it's right for someone to use public money to buy things that contribute to health problems that would then have to be dealt with by using more public money.
  • LJGettinSexy
    LJGettinSexy Posts: 223 Member
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    Kullerva wrote: »
    Kullerva wrote: »
    I was on food stamps for a while. I was okay with the "no soda" thing (my state forbids soda from being bought with them, though, oddly, I could buy as much Halloween candy as I wanted on the state's dime). The killer was diapers, toilet paper and medicine. I don't have kids, but watching others in the EBT line (where poor people go to buy food) paying two or three times for different kinds of items while on the verge of a nervous breakdown was heartbreaking. Also, diapers, toilet paper and medicine are crazy expensive and far more necessary than candy, IMO. I didn't make the rules...if I had they'd make sense.

    Edited to clarify: I really think food stamps should cover everything, or cover nothing. Presumably we can trust adults to make their own choices regarding food and basic needs? It's not like food stamp funds are unlimited.

    I always had two kids in diapers and I used cloth flats. Great way to diaper on the cheap (and I mean cheap) :) Back during that time I also made my own laundry detergent, to save money on washing them.

    Also-prices do vary, but I pay .59 for 4 rolls of toilet paper (Aldi brand). I definitely don't consider that to be one of my pricier purchases. And also varying by location, but a lot of dollar stores carry some medicines now, as well as Dollar General. Manufacturers also give out coupons on their websites frequently.

    True! I shop at Aldi now and love it, but when I was on food stamps I lived in a food desert in an extremely poor community with few stores (I pretty much had one strip mall within 30 miles to get my necessities from). My mom used cloth diapers and I did suggest them to many people but in some places it's just "not done," which I never understood...disposable diapers are hugely expensive, and so is shopping the chain stores.

    @LJGettinSexy, where the heck do you shop? Apples never retail for more than $3 a bag here, and carrots are 89c. Most fruits and veggies in season are cheap as dirt. Bananas are 49c/lb. at Pick N Save. I guess you live in a bigger city?

    I don't shop at Aldi's because there isn't one in my neighborhood and their fruits and veggies don't stay fresh as long as the other grocery stores and I buy lots of fruit because I have heavy fruit eaters in my home. Bananas are cheap as stated in my previous post. I buy a lot of food on sale but staples are expensive as heck, meats, cheese, butter, potatoes, bacon, fruit, veggies, bread. A bag of apples is only $3 in the summer when nobody eats them but Honey Crisp apples are way high, even at Trader Joes, which is the only kind I eat. Watermelon in season now is $5, which isn't bad but grapes, pineapple, strawberries, canteloupe $3-$6 products easily. I just shredded a receipt from a store where I shop, darn, LOL!
  • LJGettinSexy
    LJGettinSexy Posts: 223 Member
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    DamieBird wrote: »

    Instead of trying to teach people better habits (if they even need it) through category exclusion, why not offer classes? Instead of assuming that people will only buy junk, why not be generous of thought and compassionate enough to assume that we don't know the whole story. Maybe that lady buying a package of cookies with foodstamps has to provide something for their child's school classroom party and the school forbids home-made items because of allergy concerns? And, she doesn't want anyone to realize how hard up her family is right now, so she's doing the best she can to re-prioritize and maybe she's eating a few days of ramen for her own lunch in order to afford the cookies with her limited and supplemented food budget. Is it really that big of a deal if someone buys chips to include in their child's or partner's bagged lunch?

    Back when my kids were in the traditional school system we opted to not participate in bringing in food for classroom parties, nor did we bring in b-day treats for the classroom. If someone doesn't have the extra funds to provide a treat then they just don't bring in a treat-it's really not a big deal. My kids were never belittled/picked on for not bringing in anything, nor did the teacher pull me aside to talk about it. And actually the whole 'treats in the classroom' is a pretty controversial topic and some schools are getting away from it.

    Wow, I really do feel like I'm on a parenting board right now... I need to find a apple cider vinegar thread to balance things out :D

    What school system are they in now? Most kids want to participate, traditional or not, and shouldn't be left out because some nut job in Washington, DC is banning junk food. People say the darndest things

    We now do school of choice into a district that has an online program-it's a hybrid program of public school and then homeschooling. Technically my kids are still public school students but do most of their schooling at home :)

    eta: that also means my kids eat all their lunches at home now, and I fit that into my small grocery budget as well.

    It would be interesting to know why you took them out, BTW I don't want the answer, but it would be interesting.
  • Sp1tfire
    Sp1tfire Posts: 1,120 Member
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    CSARdiver wrote: »
    Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.

    As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):

    Nutrition/Weight Management
    Cooking
    Budgeting
    Home Economics

    Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.

    I like this idea, as it covers any potential (and I mean only POTENTIAL) issues that may have contributed to their situation. Obviously job loss /=/ lack of economics skills but it can help provide extra insight during the tough time, in the form of helping them make the most of their benefits.
  • SpacyGrrl
    SpacyGrrl Posts: 3 Member
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    [

    The argument against it could be that inner city folks don't have access to healthier foods, but if you make the change to not allow or limit unhealthy food, you are also forcing (in a good way) stores to provide healthier choices or lose that income from the food stamps. [/quote]

    Sounds good, but ask a store owner how much they spend stocking healthy foods that don't get bought. Their overhead makes them charge more, and they can't compete w/ supermarkets. IF there are even any close by. Poorer areas in cities have few big markets, they're frequently referred to as food deserts for a reason. It doesn't follow that banning junk will increase availability of healthy food. That will take activism.
  • LJGettinSexy
    LJGettinSexy Posts: 223 Member
    edited August 2017
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    I'm in favor of what someone else suggested a few pages ago by making SNAP work more like WIC. Nutritious items like fruits, vegetables, meats, while grains, and dairy items would be approved for purchase by the program, and items that didn't have approval (like cookies, crackers, soda, etc.) Would be paid for by the buyer's money. SNAP is meant to help people afford to buy enough food to eat. It's not meant to cover 100% of a person's food budget. If someone in SNAP wants to buy soda, that's fine, but they should use their own money to pay for that and use their SNAP benefits to buy actual food.

    If my food budget is $20 and $10 of that is from SNAP, why does it matter I'm actually purchasing the soda with? If I use my SNAP to buy $2 worth of beans and then use my $2 that I didn't spend on beans to buy soda or vice versa, it's the exact same result.

    It's one thing to need help feeding your family and another to ask for help feeding your family and then use that help for luxuries.

    It's being used for "luxuries" (if soda can be considered such) anyway. Whether it is directly paying for them or people are using the money that is freed up to buy soda doesn't seem relevant to me.

    It's one thing to use your own money for luxuries, another to use other people's tax dollars.

    So you see a relevant difference between directly using the benefits to buy soda and using the money that has been freed up because SNAP covered pasta or beans or whatever to buy soda?

    It's true that soda is still being bought, if that's the point you're trying to make.

    The difference is that if someone is using SNAP dollars to buy soda, then the government is essentially using tax dollars to pay for a food that is a major contributor to obesity, which causes an increased for many chronic diseases, which would then necessitate medical care that would probably be paid for using Medicare/Medicaid, spending more tax money in the process.

    What you use your own money for is your deal.

    I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I don't believe that it's right for someone to use public money to buy things that contribute to health problems that would then have to be dealt with by using more public money.
  • LJGettinSexy
    LJGettinSexy Posts: 223 Member
    edited August 2017
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    I'm in favor of what someone else suggested a few pages ago by making SNAP work more like WIC. Nutritious items like fruits, vegetables, meats, while grains, and dairy items would be approved for purchase by the program, and items that didn't have approval (like cookies, crackers, soda, etc.) Would be paid for by the buyer's money. SNAP is meant to help people afford to buy enough food to eat. It's not meant to cover 100% of a person's food budget. If someone in SNAP wants to buy soda, that's fine, but they should use their own money to pay for that and use their SNAP benefits to buy actual food.

    If my food budget is $20 and $10 of that is from SNAP, why does it matter I'm actually purchasing the soda with? If I use my SNAP to buy $2 worth of beans and then use my $2 that I didn't spend on beans to buy soda or vice versa, it's the exact same result.

    It's one thing to need help feeding your family and another to ask for help feeding your family and then use that help for luxuries.

    It's being used for "luxuries" (if soda can be considered such) anyway. Whether it is directly paying for them or people are using the money that is freed up to buy soda doesn't seem relevant to me.

    It's one thing to use your own money for luxuries, another to use other people's tax dollars.

    So you see a relevant difference between directly using the benefits to buy soda and using the money that has been freed up because SNAP covered pasta or beans or whatever to buy soda?

    It's true that soda is still being bought, if that's the point you're trying to make.

    The difference is that if someone is using SNAP dollars to buy soda, then the government is essentially using tax dollars to pay for a food that is a major contributor to obesity, which causes an increased for many chronic diseases, which would then necessitate medical care that would probably be paid for using Medicare/Medicaid, spending more tax money in the process.

    What you use your own money for is your deal.

    I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I don't believe that it's right for someone to use public money to buy things that contribute to health problems that would then have to be dealt with by using more public money.
    @Strawblackcat
    Wow, no one said that all they were drinking was soda, sometimes you just want to enjoy a soda, you're making way too much out of drinking soda. If we all were making healthier choices we wouldn't be on a weight management website
  • DamieBird
    DamieBird Posts: 651 Member
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    CSARdiver wrote: »
    DamieBird wrote: »
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    DamieBird wrote: »
    Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.

    I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.

    I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."

    It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.

    We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.

    I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .

    There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?

    This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"

    Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?

    I think a great deal of that comes down to politics. Clearly this doesn't apply everywhere, but local/state/federal money could be better spent training workers into new industries that in propping up dying ones (probably an unpopular opinion). The lack of investment into education and having an education system that is rife with mismanagement is a problem, too. We pay teachers far too little and spend not nearly enough in making sure that a HS graduate has skills in addition to knowledge. We need more people trained in skilled labor and we need more emphasis on technology based labor/infrastructure in order to be globally competitive.

    A complicating factor is that the minimum wage in this country is far from 'livable' just about anywhere, driving more people into social assistance programs while taxpayers fund corporate welfare.



    Something I ask at every school board meeting "What is your purpose?" Simple question that strikes the administration dumb every time. Are we educating kids at the secondary level to move onto post-secondary? Have we completely forgotten about those not interested in post-secondary education? Are we properly preparing kids for the working environment? How is this ensured when those teaching are completely separated from industry?

    This highlights the slow reaction of politicians to react to industry needs. Nearly all vocational programs have been eliminated from public education, yet the greatest job demand is forecasting specifically towards trades and services. Note that these are also positions that are highly resistant to outsourcing and provide a higher degree of security.

    Very true, although what was the intent of a minimum wage?

    Corporate welfare is an abomination and should be eliminated across the board. It is not the role of government to pick winners and losers in the market. This is pure corruption.

    https://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/flsa1938.htm

    According to the FLSA, minimum wage was established to end starvation wages of workers at the tail end of the Great Depression. It brings to question if the intent to various changes to the Act over the years have maintained that as a core tenet. Arguably, today's minimum wage would be considered starvation wages if it is not enough to feed an adult and any dependants under the age of 16, which is nearly always the case in our country.
    Inflation has far outpaced wages over the past 30 or 40 years, so you end up with a significant portion of works with full time jobs who still fall below the poverty line and become eligible for food assistance.

    I completely agree that the primary focus on post-secondary education is setting us up for failure. Nothing wrong with a college degree, but it is not the "key to a better life" in the way that it's often portrayed. We need workers with skills. We need people to pursure vocational education. We need people to train for the well paying jobs of the future. On the flip side, that could reduce the abundance of entry level workers all competing for the same barely paid job right out of college.